1. Field
The present disclosure relates to computer-generated animation and, more specifically, to using curves to emulate soft body deformation in computer-generated animation.
2. Related Art
In the field of computer animation, a computer-generated character is typically modeled using a skeleton structure that is covered with a soft body layer. An artist can achieve the visual effect of animation through movements of the bones and joints in the skeleton structure. The soft body layer moves, or deforms, in response to movements of the skeleton structure, through deformation of the skin, muscles, and soft tissue represented by the layer. Because the soft body layer of a computer-generated character is outwardly visible to viewers of the computer animation, it is important that the soft body deformation impart a visually plausible appearance of the computer-generated character.
However, in some cases, to achieve the visually plausible appearance, significant manual input by an artist is required to define the soft body deformation, which can be a time-consuming task. In other cases, the soft body deformation technique can be limited in its ability to achieve such an appearance. In still other cases, the soft body deformation technique can be computationally expensive to achieve this appearance.
Accordingly, there is a need for a soft body deformation technique that performs the deformation in a time- and computationally-efficient manner.